The Catholic New World: Observations, by Tom Sheridan

On a beautiful October weekend, my wife and I took a drive through Illinois, Wisconsin and across the Mississippi River into Iowa to enjoy this magnificent Midwestern season. Along the way, quite inadvertently, we crossed and recrossed the track laid down more than 300 years ago by Pere Marquette, the Jesuit priest who first brought Catholicism to what is now Chicago.

It turned out to be a powerful reminder that the present is poorer when history is ignored or worse, forgotten.

Marquette, a French Jesuit, was chaplain and missionary with explorer Louis Jolliet. In addition to confirming the rumors of the great river to the west, they brought faith to the Illinois prairie.

A display at the Catholic Festival of Faith, Oct. 30-Nov. 2 on Navy Pier, will acknowledge Marquette’s role in converting the Native Americans here in the late 17th century. It will include a replica of the bark canoe he used in 1674-75 to travel from Lake Superior, down through Green Bay, into the Fox River, the Wisconsin and finally into the great Mississippi.

On the way back, Marquette’s little party paddled up the Illinois River and into what is now Chicago. There, becoming sick, he celebrated Mass and wintered over. In the spring, he began to return to the mission he had founded on Lake Michigan’s shores near present-day St. Ignace, Mich. He died on the way; he was 38.

We take many things for granted today driving through the woods and prairies of the Midwest. It’s easy to forget how very different things were 330 years ago. It’s easy to forget fathers in faith.

Our 500-mile weekend jaunt ended up, again, quite unintentionally, at Starved Rock State Park, just outside Utica, Ill., on the Illinois River, perhaps 120 miles from Chicago.

It is a place which still stirs with the spirit of Marquette.

In the park is a memorial statue to the missionary, acknowledging that there he gathered as many as 5,000 Native Americans together and preached to them the Good News of Jesus Christ over Easter, 1675. A few miles away in Utica is another memorial, this one at St. Mary’s Church.

Marquette, it is said, feared he would be forgotten by history. So far, that hasn’t happened. Nor should it.

Stop by the display at the Festival of Faith and remember our history. (For a student essay on Pere Marquette, see Page 40.)

The Festival of Faith also should acknowledge Christianity’s challenge to today’s culture which often forgets—or worse, ignores—the values of that historic faith.

Marquette, a Frenchman, doubtless would not appreciate the ersatz connection to his homeland that is becoming popular with young people these days.

The contrived initials for the company, French Connection-United Kingdom, hints at an expression that stretches the boundaries of taste. Mike Callahan, director of Youth Ministry at St. Bede the Venerable Parish, Chicago, said the initials are on shirts and are coming out in a line of fragrances, both targeted to teens.

“Some stores have refused to join” this holiday marketing campaign, Callahan said, “but many are eagerly joining with hopes of making millions by exploiting our children.” He said, “As Catholics, we have an obligation to inform others of this attack on youth and the gift of sexuality.”

Pere Marquette would certainly agree.

In a related issue, Catholics should join the Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women and others who are concerned that the plague of pornography is challenging the fabric of our culture.

Oct. 26-Nov. 1 is Pornography Awareness Week. Morality in Media is sponsoring a letter directed to President Bush urging stronger efforts to attack adult pornography as degrading to women and an affront to faith. For information, visit: www.moralityinmedia.org.

Pere Marquette would agree with that one, too.

Tom Sheridan
Editor and General Manager